Fashions With No Fashion

What's worse than speedos?

The collective fashion of the entire country of China.

Minus Shanghai, obviously. One pair of jeans in Shanghai is worth more than a pair of fake breasts anywhere else. You don't even want to know the price of fake breasts.

But other than that, the fashion of this country is beyond astounding. Take, for instance, Mickey Mouse. Yes, you read that right, Mickey Mouse. Now what's wrong with him? Jeeze, I dunno. Why don't you ask the 44-year old business woman over there who's wearing a pair of stilettos emblazoned with his visage? She doesn't see anything wrong with him. Neither does the Disney Store Lingerie Shop. No, I'm not joking. How happy would you be to strip a woman down only to find Goofy staring back at you?



Now, I'm not usually one for rhetorical questions, but I'm sure you've come to realize that this rant is full of them. It's the thing we like to call 'elicitation' in Wall Street English jargon. It basically means that we try to get people to think for themselves, partly because it helps them learn better and partly because we're lazy.

Now, isn't this what we tried to do by initiating a Vogue China, a Cosmopolitan China, a GQ China, a Flare China? Didn't we say, "Hey China, you seem to have organized yourself fairly well over the last ten years, I bet that you'll be able to come out with some amazing fashions if we just leave you to your own devices!"

WRONG.

Point in case, glasses with no glasses. Again, I'm not joking.

Now...wait a minute...can you hear it? What's that sound? Is that the sound of my soul screaming in defeat and shame? Why yes, yes it is.



Yup, that's me wearing glasses with no glass.

The look on my face is one of utter helplessness. If you can't beat them, join them and take pictures so that your children can later mock you. This is what we call "preparing for future generations".


Quote of the Day:

"Where else in the world can you combine white leather cowboy boots, stockings, fur-lined short shorts and a Mickey Mouse tube top and have that be acceptable?"

-- a text I received from Kaare

Seriously?

Of all the bloody useless things to waste my time on, do you want to know what I did today? I spent a solid twenty minutes staring at my Microsoft Excel spreadsheet trying to figure out how I could puzzle piece my info-boxes together to fit on one, printable and aesthetically pleasing page.

Twenty minutes of my life.

I need a career change.

Or sex.

Probably both.

Quote of the Day:

"He's got a soft muffin in there somewhere."
-- Kaare on Niklas's bird-muffin-horse name

Fun With Adjectives

All of the following adjectives describe exactly two things. You may not want them to, but they do. Can you guess what it is?

(a prize to anyone who guesses correctly)

mesh
sloppy
long
saturated
chapped
steeped
quivering
shark cartiledge
hard
inky
starving
wrinkly
dank
long-sleeved
goaty
mormon
sharp
cornbread
sourcream
snaggley
paper bag
gulping
poached

***hint***

Quote of the Day

"Sloppy is the most unisex word of the night...if that isn't quote of the day, I don't know what is."

-- Kaare

You Know What They Say...

...when it rains, the air conditioning breaks. Or some such other absurdity.

We're on the fast track to rainy season here in Guangzhou. Apart from literally months of rain, here's what this means for me:

1. I am about to spend a small fortune in umbrellas that will immediately be destroyed by hurricane force winds. If I don't buy them, the wind won't blow and I'll be soaked. This is China.

2. If the streets flood, I'll probably get cholera. There's no way that the Pearl River isn't swarming with at least eight different kinds of venereal diseases.

3. Humidity. Polluted humidity. My sheets are damp and dirty and not for any rewarding reason.

4. My brand new and highly magnificent camera is close to useless because it needs sunlight. My pictures tend to look like grey crap. Fortunately, God invented something called "Adobe Lightroom" which allows me to twiddle with my pictures post-developing. (This is what we call subliminal advertising.)



5. I have recently started to climb. That's right, after years spent at the CRUX and the crags, watching and supporting others, I've actually started to do it myself. And the climbing walls in Guangzhou are all outdoors. Guess what this means for me...

I would complain about the lack of blue sky lately, but it seems a bit redundant. I would complain about the lack of pollution filled orange sky, but I don't really miss it. I do miss sunlight though. And cheese, oh yes, cheese. I know that's not really applicable, but Lordy I miss cheese...(*insert gurgling sound*)

If I sound a tad bitter at the moment, it's because our air conditioning at work is broken. I have been covered in a fine layer of dampness all day. In fact, I've been moist all day. And I really hate that word...


Quote of the Day:

"There's nothing better than a screaming, scared Cantonese girl on a rope."

-- Kaare on Yuki climbing

I ♥ Skort

(Some names have been changed to protect my coworkers.)

So there's this student we call Skort because that's what she wears; short skorts. Whether or not she realizes it, every man who looks at her immediately has an 'incident' involving his nether regions and thoughts of hers. She weighs about as much as my finger, has eyelashes that go forever and so far can barely pronounce "hello" correctly. (She's Unit 8 for those familiar with the Wall Street system). I should also mention that Wall Street is a private school for adults only; this story could have taken on a slightly disturbing tone without that little piece of info.

I guess I'll explain a little more about Wall Street to give the following story some context. All of the walls are made of glass. That's really all you need at this point.

The other day I was in the teachers room with Steve and Jesse. Our office is in direct sight of the Encounter rooms, an Encounter being a class of four or less students. We glance over to Jarrod's class and see our old pal Skort wearing what used to be a skort, but has magically morphed into a skirt. How did this transformation occur? Because she took the shortest pair of short shorts ever and cut out the crotch turning them into nothing but vagina. We could see straight up the ex-shorts and, for the life of us, could not look away. To make matters worse, her sweater said, in giant black lettering, "I ♥..." and the last word was blocked from view by the table.

Read: I ♥ Crotch

We were mesmerized. As more teachers joined us in the office (all male I might add) the atmosphere ranged from amazement to down right arousal.

Finally, the class ended and Jarrod came into the office with a look of utter helplessness on his face. He made a phew sound, shook his head and said, "That damn girl wouldn't stop speaking Chinese in class and it drove me nuts."

There were a few seconds of shameful silence in which the rest of us started to realize what pervs we were compared to Saint Jarrod when, under his breath, the good Saint muttered, "I thought I was going to have to spank her," and gone was any semblance of decency.

To top it all off, remember how we couldn't see what the last word on her shirt was? Guess what it said. No, you can't, it's too good...

I ♥ NAKED

No word of a lie.


Quote of the Day:

About Skort, obviously. Before the class had ended.

Seth: It's really just spelled out there, isn't it?
Steve: It's more like a diagram.
Angie: A flow chart, if you will.

Kentucky Fried Christ

Shao Kao.
The bane of my existence.



The rough translation of "shao kao" would be "barbeque". A more direct translation would be, "what you eat when you're so drunk that you can't actually stand anymore and are definitely not going to remember having eaten the things you are throwing up the next day."

Shao kao tends to occur around 3am after a raucous night of cheap beer, kedamine and hookers. Well, maybe not the kedamine or hookers, but I'm sure you have a vivid and fairly accurate image now. It always sounds like a great idea...but I'm pretty sure our toilet is a suicide risk by the end of the night.




The plus side of shao kao is how cheap it is. Even with eight people eating, I've never seen a bill that was more than 100 kuai (about $18 Canadian). You can eat such magical things as whole roasted eggplant, oysters on the half shell, crucified chicken (yup, Jesus in chicken form), peppers stuffed with veggie goodness, vegetarian fried dumplings, hot pot and hand made donuts. Oh, and there's beer. And baijou. But let's not talk about baijou. That's a bone-chilling story for another day.

You see, shao kao isn't so much the beginning or end of psychosis, it's more like the fertilizer that helps it grow. For 50 kuai, I got to watch Dallas teabag Lucas. For those of you who are so far (and probably happily) unaware of what teabagging is, allow me to educate you: "to teabag" someone is to place your balls (the hairy kind) on someone else' face. Why would anyone in their right mind want to see or do that? The only answer that comes to mind is: Shao Kao. And considering the public nature of shao kao, being that you're sitting on the side of the road and all, I'd say that my 50 kuai was well spent.




In closing, anyone who decides to come visit us in China will definitely experience the combination of glory and horror that is shao kao. I'm almost certain that they won't remember the teabag incident...



Quote of the Day

Two friends of ours, Dallas and Joe, were discussing the possibility of Joe touring around Europe doing spoken word. Joe was fairly skeptical, claiming that he didn't have enough material to do something like that. However, Dallas was pretty convincing, arguing that Joe only needed 15 minutes worth of material. Joe's response?

"15 minutes!? I can't manage that outta my dick let alone my mouth!"

Awesome.

(We're about 99% certain that the previous statement is untrue. Wanted to mention that so no one makes any unfair assumptions about Joe.)

I Has Learning English Since Three Years

Not quite.

The most important thing that you should know about the English language is this: just because you can speak it doesn't mean that you actually know anything about it.

For example, what is the difference between, "The movie is absolutely brilliant," and "The movie is absolute brilliance."

And why use "am going to" instead of just "will"? I am going to catch the train. I will catch the train. I am going to punch you in the face if you ask me that question again. I'll do it, I swear.

The obsession with grammar here is almost terrifying, mostly because we simply don't learn it in Canada. Without a doubt, Chinese students know more about English grammar than any Western student does. Prepositions anyone? I didn't actually know what those were until I'd been working here for about two months.

And when the hell did we get twelve different verb tenses in English?

I am an English teacher. (present simple)
I will be fired if I don't understand grammar better. (future simple)
I was an English teacher who didn't know anything. (past simple)

I am punching you in the face. (present continuous)
I will be punching you in the face if you don't shut up. (future continuous)
I was punching you in the face last night. (we shouldn't have drank so much a.k.a. past continuous)

I have decorated the Christmas tree. (present perfect)
I will have decorated the tree by the time I'm sober. (future perfect)
I had just decorated the tree when Santa started streaking. (past perfect)

I have been dancing all night. (present perfect continuous)
I will have been dancing on the table for three hours by midnight. (future perfect continuous)
I had been dancing for three hours before they finally kicked me out. (past perfect continuous)

All I want for Christmas is for Santa to take back the bloody verb tenses.

But it's not all bad. In fact, this is just me being a giant whiner. Most of the time my job is hilarious. For example, what do you call a person who takes pictures for a living? "A potato!"

Not quite.

Quote of the Day:

"She's self aware, she just doesn't realize."
(Angie)